


Cirque du Sauvage (Savage Circus)

by hikash0



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, rise of the guardians
Genre: Alcohol, Altered Mental States, Animal Tamer Aster, Blood, Carnival, Drabbles, Dreaming, Hallucinations, Hights, Isolation, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pierrot Jack, Ringmaster Pitch, Strong Man North, Trapeze Artist Toothiana, circus AU, mild insanity, nothing is real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikash0/pseuds/hikash0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>" From outside he hears the chatter and echo of hundreds of voices. Soon the lights drop and the swift overtaking darkness smothers them to muteness. A different voice snakes through the air, one that renders Jack even more lucid than the alcohol. </p><p>“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Cirque du Sauvage. Prepare to be amazed!” "</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A series of Circus AU drabbles featuring Jack wading through his carnival life. Dreamlike and disjointed, nothing is real and he can never leave.
> 
> I will be posting as the inspiration comes, comments and suggestions are always welcome.

(1)  


Do we swing high and fall like stones,  
Do we run away and search for home?  
Will the pirouette land? In our gardens made of sand?  
Or do we melt,  
melt melt melt

Jack’s base makeup is thick and smells like chalky, pasty things. He smears it on his face in the dressing room and waits for it to dry. He is already in costume, a billowing white blouse and pantaloons with silver frills cinching the material tight around his neck, ankles and wrists. His hair has been painted to match and his scalp itches because of the cheap color spray. 

The fabric hung to make up the walls of his dressing room is blue, but the orange that is the main tent shows through it and turns the cheap cloth brown. Everything coordinates around him in swirls and spatters that he can’t quite discern because the brandy he sipped on and empty stomach makes it all blur. From outside he hears the chatter and echo of hundreds of voices. Soon the lights drop and the swift overtaking darkness smothers them to muteness. A different voice snakes through the air, one that renders Jack even more lucid than the alcohol. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Cirque du Sauvage. Prepare to be amazed!”

His fingers sway with the weight of a blue-tipped paintbrush and Jack is glad he turned down North’s offer of a fourth drink. He applies the details of his makeup; dark blue crosses on the lids of both his eyes. Their ends drag down to the tops of his cheekbones and below that on the left side he paints a single teardrop. He is a Pierrot and tonight he will dance and cry for the crowds.


	2. Red Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He never shows his teeth in jest.

(2)

Jack is a clown that never smiles. He balances while the rest of them drive around him, honking and squeaking in their tiny child-sized cars. The ball under his hand is red and scratched from the dirt floor. He get’s gravel under his nails and pebbles embedded in his palm. His blood allows the ball to keeps its shiny color for yet another night.


	3. Closed Gates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Midnight mares guide him back to bed. Forever to rest his empty head.

(3)

The carnival machines have stopped creaking and the children are gone. Still, there are whispers in the night behind the curtains of the circus. While the others use dancing, fire, and secrets to keep their fun, Jack wanders the litter-strewn stalls, searching for leaves. There aren’t many, and the ones he does find have all been trampled. He looks around, smells the air, and wonders why there are so few trees. He thinks about what he might find beyond the gates of the carnival, wonders where the children go every night. He wonders but whenever he takes steps to pass the twin horse statues that mark the main entrance, Jack somehow finds himself reawakening on the bundle of rags he calls his bed.


	4. Needle Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are eyes sewn in with the threads.

(4)

  
The first time Jack looks up from the red ball and into the crowd, he falls. Makeup-smeared grins split wide to hide grimaces and pies fly at him from all directions. Later, he soaks his blouse until it is clean of oily, artificial whipped cream, and scrubs away the sticky flakes of crust wedged in the creases of his collar. The washbasin is rusted and oozes copper tint into the wool of Jack’s costume. He curses and reaches for the small stash of bleach he keeps hidden away under the rag nest. As he uncorks it, Jack feels something like a breeze trace across his bare back. He spins to watch the gap in the fabric of his bedroom walls but there is no one. Soon the smell of murky water and pungent cleaner mixes, filling his nose like a call to attention. Jack eyes the door for another moment before he shrugs it off and goes back to washing. 


	5. Violent Violet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No flitting thing is she.

(5)

  
She is the flying, soaring eagle of a jungle Jack has never seen. Her costume is sleek and feathered; like the plumage of the baby hummingbird she sequesters away for fear of it being plucked from her arms by visiting zookeepers. She is the sharpness slicing through the air high above his head, and the shrill cry of a wildness Jack aspires to. When she walks by him he catches the faint scent of midnight flowers and nectar; food for the only being she does not smite down with a violent, violet gaze. Jack wishes he could bottle the smell, and some of her fierceness too. He would keep it close and use it to mask the growing stench of bleach, and paste, and stale laughter. 


	6. Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Run, only to find that the path you take is a circle.

(6)

  
Jack has never liked to stay still. He roams when he can, skirting the junkyard of derelict rides to push at rotting boards that form the barrier between what is the carnival and what is outside the carnival. There are rats nearby and they chew at the wiring that spills from the attractions like oily guts. On the ground, shiny-slick puddles of machine blood swallow the warped whiteness of a half moon. Jack sits and rests his back against the split wood of a mermaid figurehead. He scuffs his feet in the dirt and counts the rats he sees scuttling back and forth. Lately he's been thinking he should find a name to give the mermaid. It's been hours since the thought took him, but Jack has always been awful at these things, so for now she remains without. She used to adorn some kind of gondola ride they had when the carnival was bigger. This was before money dried up and water stopped running from the pipe behind the Funhouse. Her once crisp paint is now brittle, chipping and peeling like a bad sunburn. It rubs off onto Jack's shoulder in flakes of blue and yellow. His face is dried out just like hers, smeared too often with cheap pigment. As he moves to itch at the skin under his eye, he notices a puddle of oil oozing steadily towards him. He will have to move soon or it will stain his trousers. They were a gift from Aster, self-made from the skin of a show horse that broke its leg. Jack had helped to calm Roach while he was tied down and Aster set his sights. They never talk about how long it took before the pull of the trigger.

Jack flexes his toes into the loose dirt and swings his arms, standing quickly. The shimmering blackness seeps quietly to fill the spot he vacated and Jack laughs at the close call. But the oil doesn't stop, it flows over the dent in the earth and continues towards him, reaching and stretching like threads. His laughter quickly wanes and crawls down to coil in his gut. Jack looks around to see that the rats have all gone and that a rolling fog is quickly swallowing the roller-coaster corpses. When the murk slides over and smothers the mermaid's crumbling face, Jack gets the strangest urge to run.

So he does.


	7. Cinder and Sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's only ever been a dream.

(7)

There are fingers laced across his eyes. He can feel each boney joint and hear them creak softly in movement. Dry palms cup the side of his face and the pads of spindly thumbs rest against his temple. Everything smells like ash and char, like cinder and sand. By his ear a mouth moves. Air rushes in and out, clipped tight on the inhale as if to stop some desperate gasp. And then-

"Don't leave."

Again Jack wakes without remembering ever falling asleep.


	8. Ded Moroz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I will steal you stories from the stars and wrap your tired head in snow.

(8)

North likes to steal, but he never takes from Jack. Instead it’s Jack who fears being labeled a thief when things swathed in colorfully printed tea towels begin to appear on his dressing table. A shiny coin with lettering Jack cannot read, a long thin knife with lock picking instructions hidden in the handle, and a curious glass sphere filled with shimmering particles. North denies any connection and instead says that Ded Moroz must be early this year. 

“Who even is that?” Jack asks while they are on the subject one night during a visit to North’s room. It is warm and dim, furs hang in the place of thin fabric and kerosene lamps give off humming light. 

“Ded Moroz! He is the one giving the gifts to children, you must know him? Him and his granddaughter, Snegguratchka.”

“I’m sorry, snigga-who?”

“Snegguratchka, the snow maiden. Very beautiful, they ride a sleigh drawn by great black horses and leave sweets and toys for little boys and girls.”

Jack scratches his head and comes away with bits of residual white paint.

“I thought the gift giving thing was only once a year…” Jack quirks an eyebrow at North and the great man’s cheeks redden slightly. 

“Well some children…”

North cuts himself short. He turns and bustles about near his nightstand. Jack hears the clinking of glasses and grins to himself.

“What about some children?”

“They are better—not better, I mean that they… some need more gifts. That is all I am saying. Here, I am thinking you need this now.” 

A mug of creamy golden drink that smells like spice and brandy is thrust towards him. Jack accepts it without pause. North turns and prepares himself a glass while Jack gets comfortable by sprawling on the bearskin rug.

“Tell me a story. One about where you come from, about snow.”

“North turns, beaming. Drink in hand and a twinkle in his eye, he settles on the bed.

“Do you have the globe?”

Jack pulls it lazily from his coat pocket and then rolls onto his back, holding the globe aloft for North to see.

“Good. Now shake it and look. Look deeply, concentrate on my words, and... believe.”


End file.
